Advent - Preparing to Receive Christ Anew

Come on a spiritual retreat with us through these Sundays of Advent and seek what God has to say to us for our world today.

Kolleen's inspiration to reflect on God's message for this season comes from these books:

Walter Brueggemann, Celebrating Abundance.

Magrey deVega, Awaiting the Already.​

December 9, 2018 - A New World View

OLD TESTAMENT READING Isaiah 9:6-7, NIV For to us a child is born, to us a son is given, and the government will be on his shoulders.And he will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.7 Of the greatness of his government and peace there will be no end.He will reign on David’s throne and over his kingdom,establishing and upholding it with justice and righteousness from that time on and forever.The zeal of the Lord Almighty will accomplish this.

NEW TESTAMENT READINGMark 6:49-52, GW 49 When they saw him walking on the sea, they thought, “It’s a ghost!” and they began to scream. 50 All of them saw him and were terrified.

Immediately, he said, “Calm down! It’s me. Don’t be afraid!” 51 He got into the boat with them, and the wind stopped blowing. The disciples were astounded. 52 (They didn’t understand what had happened with the loaves of bread. Instead, their minds were closed.)

SERMON A New World View As we have said more than once this year, we will be challenged by many kinds of storms. Life is about how you handle them. Will we cower in fear as the disciples did in Mark’s brief version of the storm at sea? Because they lived out of fear, they didn’t see their reality accurately. They thought Jesus was a ghost. But Jesus immediately reassures them, “Calm down. It’s me. Don’t be afraid!” As Mark’s comments suggest, “their minds were closed.” (from Mark 6:49, 52) Jesus had fed thousands with a few loaves of bread and fish. Since he had overcome their scarcity, he could also overcome their chaos. But for Jesus to overcome our problems, we have to let go of preconceived notions and be willing to believe. Jesus, Emmanuel, God with us, continues to remind us, “Calm down. It’s me. Don’t be afraid!”

That’s a message that rings through the Advent and Christmas story. “Don’t be afraid.” It’s what the angel says to Zechariah, to Mary, to Joseph and to the shepherds. “Don’t be afraid.” It is God’s message in other Bible stories as well. Such encouragement doesn’t offer false hope. It admits the reality of the world around us. But it also challenges us with a choice. Are we going to give up or hide? Are we stubbornly going to fold our arms across our chests and DEMAND proof that all will be well? Or will we lean on faith and rest on God’s promise? Are we going to trust and obey?

Magrey deVega agrees that for the characters in the Advent and Christmas stories, fear was a reasonable response, but he says, “it is also a call to resistance, and a refusal to let the trauma of external circumstances consume” us. Zechariah had to learn the hard way and was rendered silent for the nine months of Elizabeth’s pregnancy, but that gave him time to see God’s promise growing in her belly until John was born. Joseph chose trust over fear and took Mary as his wife in spite of the scandal. Herod chose fear over faith and it led to the slaughter of innocents. Mary questioned the angel yet chose to believe that if God could give Elizabeth a child, indeed “Nothing is impossible for God” just as the angel said. (Luke 1:37) Fear gave each of them a choice as it does for us. Some chose God, but Herod chose fear.

Fear often dominates our world. We’re afraid of terrorists, of illness, of a stock market crash, of assorted phobias, and of people different from ourselves. Out of fear we develop a scarcity mentality, that there won’t be enough time or money or resources or help to meet our needs. Out of fear we run away or hide from challenges that might have helped us grow. Out of fear we draw lines and set barriers to keep others out and lock ourselves into a particular way of life. Out of fear we label people, but God doesn’t see us as our color, gender, position, nationality or even religious membership. If God is behind Paul’s claim that, “There is no longer Jew or Gentile, slave or free, male and female,” then we are all free as children of God to enjoy a world where lines aren’t drawn in the sand, where there is room and welcome for everyone.

When I was young, I was afraid of bombs and of the world coming to an end, then later of cancer and car accidents and becoming handicapped. Lately I’ve been impatient and anxious over things that don’t work. These too are fear. I need to hear Jesus’ voice, “Calm down. I’m here. Don’t be afraid,” just as friends have reminded me.

I think God let me experience that, so I could glimpse what is true for so many, the anxiety of living in a time when things don’t always work out the way we think they should. We look around us or listen to the news; we hear other stories along with our own concerns, and we wish things would change. But I suspect that some of the change has to take place within us and come from us. Too often we only want our circumstances to change, but what if God asks us to change? We aren’t sure we like that idea!

When we experience this world as chaotic, we need a new world view, not a fear-based, limited perspective of our circumstances. We need God’s vision for all the possibilities God has in store. Brueggemann suggests that fear comes from a hardened heart. I think that phrase means that we are “set in our ways.” If we are unwilling to be flexible, to be stretched, to be shaped by the Creator of the universe, we become too hard and stiff. When we set “in stone” our perspective of how things ought to be, we can’t receive God’s new vision for us.

At a time when Babylon was marching toward Jerusalem to conquer Judah and other territory building an empire, Isaiah shared God’s vision of one coming to establish God’s kingdom with justice and righteousness. It was a vision that kept the faithful remnant going, enduring, hoping, praying, waiting for God’s promise to be fulfilled. This is how we should wait not only through the practice of this Advent but in an extended Advent season as we wait for the fullness of God’s kingdom, for justice and righteousness to truly reign here on earth.

Luke records a time when Jesus hinted to his disciples that there is a whole other layer of reality that most of us miss. They had just come back from a two by two mission, going about living out what Jesus did, teaching and doing good. They were amazed at what God allowed them to do in Jesus’ name! He said to them, “Happy are the eyes that see what you see. I assure you that many prophets and kings wanted to see what you see and hear what you hear, but they didn’t.” (Luke 10:23-24) Their mission had briefly exposed a glimpse of the power and glory of God’s kingdom and the privilege of working within it.

The very next story is the young lawyer who asks Jesus, “What must I do to inherit eternal life?” Jesus tests him asking what the law says. His response summarizes the law “to love the Lord your God with all your heart and mind and soul and strength, and to love your neighbor as yourself.” (Luke 10:27 paraphrased) To live out these commandments is to live in the Kingdom of God “on earth as it is in heaven” (from the Lord’s Prayer, Matthew 6:10)

The Kingdom comes in God’ steadfast love and our response to it. Brueggemann describes that love as “solidarity in need” and “transformative.” (Celebrating Abundance, pp. 24-25) First, God’s love meets us in our need. It is the constant love of Psalm 25 as used in our prayer of confession earlier. God coming to earth in Jesus is God’s ultimate expression of solidarity with humanity. But God wants to do more than meet our need. God wants to transform us and the world around us. We are called to be extensions of God’s steadfast, constant love to the world, as we love our neighbor in ways that meet their needs and bring the transformation they also need.

Jesus, Messiah, Emmanuel came and comes and will come again to transform this world toward God’s vision. Jesus works in us and through us to accomplish that purpose. His work continues when we participate in that mission. The Bible tells us that the Kingdom of God is near, is among us, is in our midst. Christ is still with us as the Holy Spirit works toward this vision. But the Kingdom is not yet complete. It will come one day in all its fullness. This is what we wait and prepare for and remember in the season of Advent. For me that future fullness of God’s Kingdom is the promise left us in Revelation 21-22 at the end of the New Testament. It echos the hope-filled visions and promises of Isaiah and other Old Testament prophets.

Remember that Jesus said God’s purpose is sometimes hidden from those in power. God often reveals his visions to the poor, the powerless, the oppressed or the vulnerable, instead of to the ones whom society sees as best suited and most able. Wasn’t that true in the Advent stories? King Herod didn’t get it at all, because he could only see his own desire for power. For him everything else was an obstacle. The Magi from the East did see the vision whether or not they fully understood it. They were willing to submit to the mystery and travel to a foreign land to see its fulfillment in a culture and religion not their own. Zechariah, as a priest, should have understood it best, but he hesitated to trust God beyond his immediate circumstance. Joseph and Mary were skeptical at first, but each chose to put their faith in the vision shared by the angel, even without seeing all the details.

As you hear God’s Word this season, and as you look at the world of need around you, consider what God’s vision for this world might yet be. Ask yourself where Jesus is still at work and where you might participate. Learn to seek God’s kingdom where you don’t expect to find it. But when you do, I pray you will choose to hear God’s message. “It’s me. Don’t be afraid.” I hope you will choose, in spite of your fears, to share in God’s mission wherever you find it.

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